Bible Translation Growing Around Papa New Guinea

The world of translation is something we obviously feel very passionate about at Ferris Translations, and we keep an eye on global translation records and ideas. One interesting idea that caught our attention recently was the massive increase in bible translations, particularly in Papa New Guinea. A country which is still finding its feet in many ways, this increase of translated bibles could help to spread positivity across the country.

The people of Papa New Guinea are beginning to see major progressive change thanks to the Wycliffe Bible Translators, or the WBT. The WBT are working tirelessly to create translated versions of the bible, and are doing this using high-end software, otherwise known in the translation industry as a CAT tool.

Improving the Process

One of the major problems with translation for many people is the time. While many projects can be translated fairly quickly, larger projects – such as the Bible – take a lot longer to manage and consistency is an absolute must. With the advanced software being used by the WBT, though, this is changing rapidly. This software is making a major improvement to the accuracy and consistency as it catches out things, including errors, that had slipped under the radar in the past.

Creating the Context

The main problem tends to be creating context for terms that otherwise may not exist in a different language. Terms clearly have to make sense within the confines of the local culture, which greatly slows down the translation process in many languages.When this happens, it is not only a great challenge for any translator, but making sure that term remains consistent within the scope of the entire work or group of works is paramount. Using the new computer-aid-translation (CAT) tool, once a suitable term in the target language is found, it is possible to find all the other areas this term is used in order to keep it consistent.

While translation is always handled best by hand and mind, it helps to have these supporting tools to make things easier!